Sci-fi Military Tactics and Strategy

I know it seems a bit far fetched, but bear with me. How long do you think a moderately sized company could survive without any officers or directions from central command? As in, for all they know, they could have completely different orders, but not know about it, say due to an EMP or whatnot knocking out communications.

I would say that hevily depends on what kind of company and there training.

If it is an US or NATO company, for quite some time, the chains of command in NATO military are pretty robust against decapitation strikes.

This statement implies that the Russians heavily rely on central command for their units and not for NC Os to step up when necessary...

Oh, come on. Surely they couldn't have been THAT stupid.

o.O

Tactical: That depends on how dependent the company is on centralized command and control and how much access they have to the necessities.

It would really depend on what the company's orders were before they lost their officers and communications. If they were some sort of garrison unit whose job was primarily to exist and maintain a camp, probably quite some time depending on the quality of their NC Os and overall discipline to begin with. If they were a combat unit out in the field approaching an objective, I could see how it might be more problematic, again depending on their NC Os and discipline.

I do find it kind of odd that a unit might lose their radios and their officers, but not their NC Os. In a company, you'd probably have something like five or six officers of varying levels throughout the chain (platoon commanders, company commander, company exec, etc.)

The Russians and Chinese are only discovering how effective the use of is NC Os now, for doctrine and cultural reasons most of the decision making and power was held by the higher ups. Hence the fear of decapitation first strike by NATO as they knew their forces would have troubles organizing without the central comands.

In theory, senior NC Os are just as capable as junior commissioned officers. In fact, I'd go so far to say that the non-commissioned officers are more essential than the junior officers at keeping an army effective.

The problem comes in with the enlisted-commissioned divide. Sergeants aren't told the big picture nor to they have the authority to requisition supplies. Most importantly, with most of the officers dead the company as a whole looses cohesion and breaks down to platoons and squad. There is a hierarchy to sergeants, though, so the company could kind of coordinate but each sergeant is primarily concerned with the running of their platoon and wouldn't know the status of the others.

The company would be flailing, blind and disoriented, but they'd still be dangerous.

I'm wondering if it is tactically advantageous to have combat vehicles be simple and highly modifiable. Or whether or not that's a drain on resources for a bunch of fancy extras that might never get used.

Personally, I like the idea of a modular design since it lets you to create specialist variants without needing to reinvent the wheel. This vastly simplifies logistics while maintaining flexibility. That being said, you'll eventually run into walls in performance as you can only push a frame so far.

Just remember some things just wont be posible to be easily modifiable.

Any armor that is not applique, and the drive train are going to be a massive pain in the ass to change even with a highly modular design.

And the chassis is flat out impsoble.

This means that there still all going to be about the same weight and armor level, but you will get some reather diffrent versions of that vehicle.

Your probaly best off having 3 vehicles under that system, a light, medium, and a heavy.

So, assuming two stealth fighters engage in the same airspace, it's reasonable to assume that, given roughly equal technological footing, any engagement BVR is pretty much useless and its time for some Top Gun esque dogfighting?

Stealth aircraft are not "invisible" there just harder to detect.

It would depend on how close they get to eachother before noticing, and what kind of weapons they have once they get there.

Stealth planes tend not to have much ammunition capacity in there guns compared to the older ones, and some missiles will still swat a stealth aircraft once you realize it is there.

edited 28th Apr '16 7:38:27 PM by Imca

Immy pretty much nailed it. It would likely boil down to whoever saw who first and got off the first clean shot. At what range that could occur is purely situational. It is entirely possible neither will score a kill. If all things are equal it is also possible they could mutually kill each other. It may also be possible they fail to detect each other sufficiently to engage in a fight. They know something is there but can't pin point it.

And turning their radars on to get a better target resolution pretty much means yelling "Yo! You cheeky cunt! I'm right here! fight me!".

Hence why the added focus on the use of datalinked drones and AWACS to relay the data of whatever target they find to the stealth fighter, including pings on other stealth bogeys.

All that's pretty much true for non-stealth planes as well. BVR combat just isnt that common.

Although in there case isn't it more of a rules of engagement thing?

Non-stealth craft would be easier to detect and track at longer ranges but the problem is still maneuverable craft like fighters are pretty hard to hit and they have a lot of time to detect and react to the missile increasing their chances of evasion or countering. For example take the up and coming Meteor missile. To reach its max range at Mach 4 would take it over 3.6 minutes. That is a lot of time to do something about the incoming. Even at half that range it is still almost 2 minutes of travel time to the target.

edited 28th Apr '16 8:36:39 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Plus if the two jets are traveling toward one another then they are closing in almost as fast as their missiles. You get about one salvo with the missiles, then it's down to the guns. Again, that's without stealth.

edited 28th Apr '16 8:43:21 PM by DeMarquis

Although at that speed, it can probably cover whatever ground the target just did a lot faster once it hits its stride. If the pilot doesn't notice the incoming and get out of the target envelope very quickly, it might not matter how long it takes the missile to catch up with him.

The thing takes 3 minutes to reach Mach 4? Unless that's extremely common among missiles, I'm not impressed.

So, assuming a closing speed of Mach 4, it's about 60 seconds to cover 50 miles. Pretty sure if both pilots know there is a fight, nobody is worrying about missing with one missile in a head-on engagement. And if they cross paths roughly head-on after missing with every lowest-bidder bird they had on the rails, it might be a neat trick to turn around and catch up with them again before they sail back into the missile engagement envelope again.

It was in the Israeli conflicts and Iraq 1.0, the Iraqis scored a couple of kills in the USN F-18s using BVR missiles and Mig-25 Foxbats which then the Foxbats were also shot down by a F-16 using an AMRAAM, by then missile tech had learned a lot from Nam, there was a issue non stealthy aircraft were suffering due to missiles becoming able to achieve a higher Pk and increased range along increased A 2 AD coverage by more accurate and long ranged SA Ms.

AESA radars used in the F-15 allowed it to scan targets from further ranges at low probability of being intercepted, which was an advantage the US held for 20 odd years but the Chinese and Russians are now fitting their most recent fighters with EASA instead of PESA radars but most of the opposition NATO forces would face still use PESA radars.

It will also depends of the frontal Radar Cross section of the target, the F-22 has an estimated RCS of 0.0001 m^2, the F-35 0.001 m^2 and the PAK-FA 0.01 m^2 and a Flanker as something like 2 m^2. So that pretty much means it will depend of the target resolution and detection ranges from the mounted radars, the longer the range and the tighter the detection tolerance from further the radar will be able to provide a firing solution, while a lower RCS will decrease the range a radar can achieve a lock.

IRST and EOTS can provide additional tracking input but those are usually Lo S and can suffer atmospheric interference.

If more than anything BRV is only a rare occurrence because air to air fights are very rare to begin with.

if you got the time and stomach to do some heavy reading there is an USAF essay over the use of radars and low probability of intercept in warfare.

edited 28th Apr '16 9:07:47 PM by AngelusNox

De Marquis:Only if they keep charging head on. If they think they are being fired on most fighter pilots tend to try and evade which typically means altering their course and then maneuvering into a new one. Charging head long to gun range is a good way to get tagged and it doesn't stop someone from using shorter ranged missiles in the attack either like the Sidewinder or Russian R-73 which use a variation of IR detection which is a lot harder for stealth craft to hide from especially at shorter ranges. Roughly on average the ranges for those missiles is good from 1km out to 35km and move around mach 2.5. Head to head even with guns will net you only about a burst before the other craft is past you and the window to fire at speed is really small.

Most fighter pilots are going to maneuvering to evade missiles rather then continue on a head long charge. Closing to gun range in a dynamic sense is a bit more complicated and involves a lot of positioning and maneuvering.

edited 28th Apr '16 9:12:17 PM by TuefelHundenIV

From what I've seen, it's much more likely for fighters to be destroyed on the ground than in the air. That's why airfields are traditionally one of the first things hit once wars break out.